E-Tolls are Back – Can Cosatu save Gauteng?

If ever there were a time when the South African masses, working or not; white, black or in-between could rise up in support of COSATU, then now would be that time. After what has been somewhat of a rough couple of weeks for the trade union federation and its leader Zwelinzima Vavi, it seems that his organisation now holds the last hope for Gauteng citizens.

This week, the Constitutional Court overturned a previous high court interdict to halt the controversial SANRAL e-tolls project. The reason given by Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke was that the high court had not considered the separation of powers between the executive and the court.

In lay terms for those of you who don’t speak legalese, this means “you idiots voted them into power, so don’t expect the courts to help you now (unless you can actually prove corruption or fraud was in play… and best of luck with that!)”

Now, let’s turn to COSATU and the South African business community woes. The Lonmin Marikana wage settlement sets an interesting new precedent. Regardless of any wage agreements brokered by what could be very loosely considered to be organised labour, workers can go off independently, hold a wildcat strike and successfully pressure their company into paying them above-inflation salary increases. Wow, power to the workers and all that.

Besides the obvious implication that COSATU is pretty limp and useless at its job, it also means that any bright spark in other labour intensive industries can go ahead and try to achieve the same result. If you were looking for a great business opportunity, now would be an ideal time to be manufacturing picket signage, how to toyi-toyi manuals and bad spelling dictionaries. Of course, the traditional weapon and bulletproof vest business will probably take off too.

Being ever-optimistic however, Wonkie hopes that COSATU’s setback in their core function will fire them up even more in their inevitable revolt against the Gauteng e-tolls. Believe it or not, as things stand COSATU really is the last hope to make the ANC government reconsider its stupid decision. So for now, it’s Viva Vavi unless the passive aggressive South African public get off their behinds and start vocally protesting where it counts – i.e. not just to Jannie, Sipho and Elmarie next to the office watercooler.

If you’ve all but spent the little money you had previously set aside for the e-tolls (when you got all excited on the news that it was going to be canned), this would probably be a good time to cross your fingers and visit this website to buy lottery tickets online now. If you’re vexed, in Gauteng and ready to pick your numbers already, check out Wonkie’s play UK lottery from South Africa page today.

I think that now would be a good time to forget our differences and fight the common enemy. It does not help to insult others. Black and white, christian and atheist, pirate and chief, lion and bull – forget petty differences and stand together refuse to pay e- tolls. Hell, rope Juju in if we can, but only unity will win this fight.

I wish there is hell indeed. I would love to be employed there at no salary just to man the gates with an automatic rifle and tear-gas canisters to make sure none of them escape. Where is that Marikana witchdoctor when you need him most, I would do with some invisible muti so that they won’t see me at the hell gate

BHandle, I’m sure you are right. That is why they are not prepared to even listen to arguments in favour of alternative means of collection.
Can you imagine the extra fury that will be unleashed once the public has the added inflation that will result from the higher costs of transporting virtually every commodity?
Maybe it will at last cause the brainwashed voters to realise that their government does not care for anyone but themselves.

@manthatha – no bro, that won’t help. we must vote against them, not stay away. Vote for anybody except ANC – UDM, Azapo, PAC, COPE, DA, KISS, anybody. So that they can see we are highly dissatisfied and not just apathetic. This is going too far. Even if the money is going to Austria, why would they have thought up this scheme if they were not going to benefit hugely from it themselves. They think we are stupid.

At last a topical issue we ca all argue about. I expect Mzu to weigh in here while she tells us all how marvellous the ANC is. I also expect Cosatu to object to the tolls, what wonderfully divisive issue. But how come the Government is forcing this issue that the people clearly don’t want, down the throat of these who voted for them.

PG told the SAfm this morning that the Government was seeking a win win approach for all involved and called for cool heads to prevail in the Gauteng e-tolling saga.

The only win-win situation is to stop the fraudulent activities by mostly ANC cadres, recover the money and use it for the purpose required. Taxpayers will not be continually milked while useless morons occupy high positions and abuse public funds!!! We will not pay more for something we are already paying!!!

I’m furious about this e-toll issue. How the baboons going to make me pay? I won’t have an e-tag. So where they going to send bills.? Those bills will go straight into the dustbin. We will collapse the system.

Anyone who buys e-tags is a yellow-belly spineless coward. In fact, the same boneless idiots who tip those monkeys that call themselves car guards, those same idiots will buy e-tags. Take note that those sort of cowards who buy e-tags will be paying for nothing……I will not be paying 1 cent !!!

If no-one buys e-tags, we will bring this system to its knees and it will be scrapped. However, as usual, there will always be those few traitors that will buy e-tags. But i’ll laugh at them, because they will be the only ones paying.

An internet article from March this year gives the following approximation: New Construction Undivided 4 Lane Rural Road with 5′ Paved Shoulders $3,424,138.89 (per mile).
This translates to less than R 18 million per kilometre. Our toll roads cost in the region of R 108 million per kilometre (R 54 million for each direction) for merely resurfacing and widening existing roads.
There can be no comparison and it is obvious that this was why Sanral was not prepared to give the public any information in this regard.

The only explanation is that there was massive corruption such as was witnessed in the arms deal. Possibly many structures aligned with the ANC were asked to contribute to the actual costs involved in the construction with the promise of huge returns on their investments. The fact that Eskom let slip a few months ago that it had commitments to its investors supports this assumption. Presumably Eskom needs to rip us off is so that they can pay huge dividends to ANC shareholders.

The public is now expected to pay the promised profits to whomever was involved. Why should the hard pressed public be held responsible? The construction should only include the profit that the companies involved in the construction of these roads built into their tenders. Any tenders that did not parallel but grossly exceeded those of other civil engineers should have been rejected.
Without answers this unwarranted cost will deserve the condemnation that has so far accompanied the attempts to force the public to accept the necessity to concede to this rip-off.

The Govt. will use the full extent of the law to enforce e-tolling including imprisonment thereby using all of their crime fighting resources, clogging the courts even more than they are now and they will fill up the jails. JZ,s birthday cant come round fast enough so that he can parole murderers, rapists, thugs and other violent offenders so that they can put thase who wont pay in jail. The crime rate will increase tenfold until they give it up or bring back the death penalty. Cosatu can cause a strike that makes Sharpeville and Marikana fade into insignificance. Are they going to send in the Army?

@Garth. Don’t talk sh*t man. Don’t spread lies. You cannot go to jail for not paying tolls, you dumb doos ! Not paying tolls will not be handled under the Criminal Procedure Act. You can only go to jail if it’s a criminal offence, which it can never be. But carry on believing your own sh*t. I won’t be paying tolls.

People are like sheep. They just hear 1 rumour , then they start shaking in their boots. Spineless jellyfish. Cowards. Instead of thinking for themselves. Well, at the end of the day, if you STUPID, go ahead, pay e-tolls. The rest of us will be laughing at you.!

There is a grave human condition that afflicts politicians, mangers and cadre appointed officials. (make that all officials). It is called babijaanism and it causes these same people to act like baboons. Something by the way they have been formerly accused of by no greater personage than Fatboy, he of the expanding gut. The condition is marked by the refusal and denial that they made a gross error. Examples of this are the attempts to pass the new secrecy laws, They are rehashed from the days of apartheid when they surmised that the whole world was against them, the enemies now are figments of their imagination (forget for the moment Botswana). The USA invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, The introduction of the e-tolling arrangement. These things go on for years, cost money and lives. They happen when some baboon gets too big for his boots. The biggest problem is that they do not know when to stop, they do not know when to admit they are wrong. They plod on regardless of the consequences.

Dennis, we are all wooses we will bend over and take it.
Jewel, you nsound like my old (very old) English teacher Here in SA we speak SABC Ingliss.
Trevor, idiots like you are correct sometimes. Perhaps you have schizophrenia.

I cannot say this with enough emphasis…..JUST DON’T BUY E-TAGS….!!!!!!! I don’t know why people don’t see this,…. if no-one has e-tags, I guarantee that the system will crash in 4 months. I’ll say again…DON’T BUY E-TAGS…(for those people that can’t work it out for themselves).

NO for E-Tolls! We can hardly support our selfs but Government will still turn the taps full open to see his people living in the cutters! Now they think if they exempt public transport our other people must just swallow all their nonsense!!! No more its time we stand up and fight for what is right!!!!!

I think everything about e-tolls has been said,but to go back e-tolls are just another form of taxation. Some people will be able to afford the increase and will resent it. Many more will be pushed to pay for something they cannot afford. There are other unintended consequences, for instance transporters costs will increase and the costs will be passed on to all consumers, even those who do not live in Gauteng and those who do not use the toll roads, taxation has a limit, you cannot tax people beyond that limit, if you do two things can happen, first is according to economic theory (Google Laffer Curve) if taxes exceed a certain limit revenue will drop. The Laffer curve says that increasing tax rates beyond a certain point will be counterproductive for raising further tax revenue. The Second point is that when people are destitute they expect relief from the government, if they don’t get it they rebel, many a government has been overthrown by the mob. Just take a look at service delivery protests and the Marikana incident, these are the harbingers of revolution. Such revolution does not have to be violent, rabble rousers such as Mussolini and Hitler were elected. The same is being generated by the ilk of Fatboy and his friends. This could be a tipping point brought on by the belligerence and intransigence of our inept and dangerous leadership.

Those suckers that do buy e-tags will be horrified, 12 to 18 months after the start of the e-tolling, when the fees are doubled or more as the government will need to make up the loss of toll earnings while they have been on hold.
The beneficiaries in the government will not be prepared to forfeit their profits from this scheme and the Austrian billing company will have a water-tight contract to ensure their excessive earnings.
Since the whole country will be held at ransom by this theft, as pointed out by Garth, it would certainly be financially beneficial for the whole country if the ignoramuses that run (down) the country increased the cost of petrol by 10 or 20 cents / liter to pay for the roads. We would not need to pay an overseas company billions to determine who needs to be fleeced.
Unfortunately the cadres in government would lose out and they are not prepared to countenance that.

Back to the comic strip…..we are surely cursed to live in Gauteng, Helen. One fine day we will be able to pack up and move to ZILLELAND, where sanity, honesty and order rule!!
The only unrest, chaos and trouble in the Cape is strictly the ANC’s dirty work

The introduction of e-tolls will increase taxation and therefore inflation. The problem with inflation is that it feeds on itself and what may start as mild increases in the CPI can suddenly runaway and an inflation of 5% can become 10% overnight and that 10% can escalate anywhere. This happens because government and business cannot afford their loans. Individuals will go broke unless they get substantial increases. (read marikana).
There is a theory that when inflation posts double digits there will be a change of Government the lower the number the less violent, normally at an election or if it higher there will often be an overthrow or what they call a palace revolution.
The old Nat regime had no choice other than to hand over to the ANC because inflation was above 20%, In 1976 the army in Argentina took over in a bloody coup when inflation hit 1000%, In Zimbabwe Mugabe took over violently to prevent the opposition winning any election and created an illegal and illegitimate government. What, how and when will that happen here.
The government must act now to curtail inflation and prevent inflation in the future before the EFF gets elected, before service delivery protests become a revolution and marikana becomes the norm.